June 28, 2007

Ratatouille

Looks like Brad Bird has another winner on his hands. After his success with The Incredibles the Pixar writer/director has scored 90% on the Tomatometer with Ratatouille.

One problem with movies has been that they all seem to be rehashing the same stuff, again and again, with just enough of a changed paint job so they can't be sued for plagiarism. Let's give Bird credit for coming up with an original idea: a common rat in Paris named Remy wants to become a chef in a 4-star restaurant, and apparently has the talent to do it. So he teams up with a kid named Linguini and they work together. The rat provides the talent and knowledge, and the kid provides hands and acceptability.

As James Berardinelli points out, in one sense this is right out of Cyrano de Bergerac but I think it's enough different to justify being called "original". [Sigh. Make any statement like that and readers will view it as a challenge to find ways of impeaching the statement. Spare me, OK?]

Berardinelli also says that the technical staff at Pixar has upped the bar on rendering yet again. Some of the still frames look pretty amazing, I must say. And they've managed to pull in one hell of a cast. Ian Holm is the villain -- and since he is always outstanding in every role he takes, I'm sure the villain is suitably villainous.

I haven't been to a movie in a real theater since 1999, but I'm tempted by this one.

A trailer for Ratatouille is on the DVD of Pixar's Cars. When I got it for Xmas, I was quite astonished by the quality of the animation... Cars is light-years above Toy Story, the other Pixar film I have in my collection, and Ratatouille looks about that much better than Cars.

I had no interest in the movie... until I thought to check whether they got him back. Between "The Incredibles" and his work on the Simpsons (back when it was on), he'd have to lay quite a few bombs before I'd stop paying attention to his work.

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For future reference, how do I set a spoiler block in a post with Opera Mobile? I tried doing the p bgcolor = "silver" color="silver" thing when I posted, but apparently the blog software stripped it out.

Snakes On A Plane was the most fun I've had at a movie theater in years. I wish hollywood would go back to making movies that people cheered about during the movie. When Samuel Jackson delivered his signature "I want these MF snakes off my MF plane!!" the crowd went nuts.

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For those who somehow haven't figured it out yet, Edna Mode is the tribute of The Incredibles' filmmakers to Hollywood costume designer extraordinaire and all-time Oscar champ (eight awards) Edith Head. I'm reading Edith Head's Hollywood right now. Good stuff, and much better (with better costume pictures too) than the biography churned out by David Chierichetti a couple years back.

Enclose all spoilers in spoiler tags:[spoiler]your spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoilers which are not properly tagged will be ruthlessly deleted on sight.
Also, I hate unsolicited suggestions and advice. (Even when you think you're being funny.)

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